The Fiction Factory

“To write,” Mrs. Edwards answers, when her husband asks whether to quit his steady job and trust his future to stories. John Milton wants her confidence—and fears what it might cost them both.

In Chicago during the hard times surrounding the World’s Columbian Exposition, John Milton Edwards earns a salary as a paymaster while his “Fiction Factory” turns out stories at night and on Sundays. His wife believes he can do more if he writes full-time; he worries that inspiration may vanish once it has to pay the bills. William Wallace Cook draws on twenty-two years in the writing trade to explore the gamble, the craft, and the stubborn persistence behind a working author’s life. Can Edwards’s story mill keep grinding when it is no longer a sideline?

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